The Illusionist
by Threesmallcrows
Summary: Mammon has betrayed them. Bel doesn't know yet. And atonement? It's just another illusion. Varia-centric, major character deaths, AU-esque.
1. Illusionist

**Illusion (ist) **

Once upon a time there lived in an Illusionist.

Within the Family, they called him _il sognatore._ But in the Triad it was_ zuo meng zhe_, among the yakuza _masutā __no __yumemiru hito_, in the drug lords' starry, smoky nights _el soñador_ _de mil mundos_. His name was whispered across continents in a thousand different tongues.

But in Chicago and London, they simply called Mammon the Illusionist—or when they were feeling especially sentimental with sex and sleepiness, maybe the Dreamer.

Everyone knew Mammon was the best at what he did. No one else, they stated, could recreate that particular sweet smell of lightning before it struck. No one else could make the sun shine through the leaves the glowing gold-edge way it does in midsummer. The clench of the thighs of women was never as firm in reality, their lipstick never that particular glowing shade of red.

When you tasted Mammon's death, it was more real than actual dying, they murmured into the drug-hazed air of the cities.

He was one of the best of all the illusionists, they sighed.

Such a pity.

_(illusione)_


	2. Winter

**Winter**

Once upon a time, there lived a Prince.

He was a strange Prince and did strange things. For one, he liked killing people very much. Where other small children typically painted with watercolours, he opted for blood. For a second, he liked killing people _so _much that the castle no longer contained a King, or a Queen, or Princesses, or other Princes—though, unmistakably, it once had…?

But the Prince wasn't lonely because he was never the type of child who would be lonely (another strange thing about the Prince is that he would always be a child, even when he was supposed to be all grown up already).

Rather, the Prince spent his days with an equally strange group of people.

Among them was the Illusionist.

The Prince lived his life in relative happiness, but as he aged, some things began to bother him.

For one thing, he became quite aware of a black figure lurking on the edge of the horizon.

The figure did not move. The figure did not speak. The figure did not approach. Yet wherever the Prince chose to go the figure was there. It was a black blot against the otherwise pure sky.

And the Prince sensed, vaguely, that the figure was watching him and always had been. Since the beginnings of his time.

He was kind enough to sit the Illusionist down and explain these things to him, one day.

(-)

They took tea on the ice lake outside of the castle that went on forever and _forever and forever. _You know, the one with corpses frozen in an eternal dance underneath. Their eyes were friendly.

It was a beautiful day, the kind the Prince liked best: sunny, but the sun torn open and seeping buckets of golden warped rain. Music swelled and stretched in the background like a putty hand being torn in slow-motion. It was too slow and too low to recognize.

What he asked, was, "What happened to that man?"

The Illusionist waved his finger. The kettle lifted itself and poured again. The Prince's eye was caught by the elegant movement of the liquid. It spiraled down and down and in and in until it hit his cup with a hot splash. Some drops of dark stuff landed on his arm. They did not burn.

"What man?" asked the Illusionist.

"You know. That one—"

"I am not," said the Illusionist, "a mind reader. You will have to elaborate."

The Prince growled a little with frustration. "Okay. Fine, you stupid baby." This, ignoring the fact that the thin boy sitting in front of him was at least the same size as he (how had _that_ happened, again…?).

"I'm talking about that man with the hair that, that was…" The Prince gestured, vaguely, above his head. "You know? Like that. I forgot his name. But he was around, _somewhere_…"

"I don't know who that is," said the Illusionist, staring at the Prince.

"He. He looked like." The Prince stopped. Started. Stopped again. "Come _on_," he half-whined. "I just…"

"Have some tea," said the Illusionist.

The Prince drank, a little.

"What were we talking about?" asked the Illusionist.

"What~?" said the Prince, playfully.

"You were asking me about someone," prompted the Illusionist.

"Are you crazy? The Prince wasn't talking to you."

"Never mind," said the Illusionist.

The Prince still talked in exactly the same way he had before. It was almost heart-_crumble_-ing.

They finished off the tea. The music trembled in anticipation. Levi had vanished.

"Don't fuck with me," hissed the Prince.

Lightning unexpected struck the ice. Faraway a fire started, backlighting a small black figure.

_Did I do that? _thought the Illusionist.

_What's _he _doing there? _thought the Illusionist.

_A reversal? _thought the Illusionist.

"Tell me," commanded the Prince. "Tell me what the hell is happening here. I want out. Do you hear me? I want to get out of here." Though the Illusionist knew full well he was the one with all the power, all the responsibility, in this realm, he nevertheless half-expected the Prince's ever illogical knives to appear. "Where is here? What did you do to me? And where is everyone else?"

The Illusionist did not answer anything. All he said was:

"I knew you would find out."

The Illusionist's eyes were a black so pure that the Prince almost stopped breathing for an instant.

How had he never noticed?

(_inverno)_


	3. Autumn

**Autumn**

Then it was fall and the leaves were clothing the trees. The Prince wandered through the auburn gold forest growing through the ice, trying to ignore the black figure following him. Little violet flames hovered low over the ground. One by one they turned in to leaves and drifted up, before reattaching themselves with little pops to the branches. A little frog hopped along the ground in front of him. The Illusionist was next to him.

"Hey—"

"What is it?" replied the Illusionist.

The Prince, he mused, never used his name anymore.

"Do you hear that sound?"

"What sound?"

"Don't _what-sound _me. That annoying ticking noise. Tick-tick-tick. The Prince thought you said we were running out of time."

"We are."

"Then aren't you going to hurry up?"

"Trust me," said the Illusionist. "I will."

_Who would trust you? _thought the Prince. _Only a fool. _

Under the light of the deep-orange sun, the Illusionist peeled open the buttons of his shirt. He showed the Prince the tattoo growing against the skin of his chest.

"Do you see that?" asked the Illusionist.

"What is it?"

"It's what I use to keep time here. It also tells me how much I have left."

The conversation was too circular. The Prince stared at the inky, fungus-like threads spreading over the Illusionist's heart. Even his veins looked a dusky grey.

"What is here?" asked the Prince.

"Does it really matter," the Illusionist said.

"Of course it matters. There's a—clock, on you," answered the Prince.

"Is there?" The Illusionist glanced at himself, then away. "What's the difference anyway? Does it matter if it's real or not?"

"_Ushishishi. _Of course it matters whether it's real, you stupid baby," said the Prince. "That's everything that matters."

"Funny," said the Illusionist, humorlessly. "I supposed I should have known that."

(-)

Then the Prince had a dream about the forest.

In the dream there was an enormous glass runway lying on the floor of the woodland, sprawled out forever and _forever and forever_. There was a man with insultingly bright hair contemplating his reflection in the mirror at its end-not-end.

"M~chan," the figure said.

"Lu~," the Illusionist replied.

Dream-Prince leaned in. His tiara almost fell off.

He was frustrated. His ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. Why were all the sounds blurring? And that damned music was warping away in the background again, scraping of violin bows on bones. Covering everything.

"When Le~ left," said the figure.

"Is when you figured it out," completed the Illusionist.

"Yes," they said, together.

They nodded like an old couple.

"Are you going," said the Illusionist.

"That doesn't sound like a question," countered the figure.

"I don't think it was. Unless you mean to be unexpected."

"No. I don't think I do," said the figure.

The sun was rising. It reflected off the glass, off everything. It hurt the Prince's eyes. Everything was becoming brighter.

"It's been nice," said the figure.

"Don't joke," said the Illusionist. "It hasn't been nice. It's been Hell."

"Mam~…"

"What?"

A warped silence ran them through, woven with bits of that persistent music.

The figure cocked its head, and studied the pale young man in front of him, studied the Illusionist's face with the bruises curled like slumbering cats underneath his hard, flat eyes. He thought that perhaps the Illusionist had always liked to hide them because they were the part of him that were the most revealing; those who deal in secrecy could rarely afford to give anything away, after all.

At least without a decent price.

The figure smiled. He tried to make it bitter but it just came out sad.

"Take care of yourself," he said.

"I won't."

_I can't, at this rate, _is what the Illusionist meant.

The figure sensed futility. He gave the boy a last, pitying look.

"Well, then. Bye-bye~," he said, teasingly.

Everything was the color of autumn, the color of flame. The man was burning up. The man was gone. The music swelled and exploded and shrunk back on itself, cooling.

The Prince closed his eyes against the light, and woke up, and the dark sun was back again.

_Phoenix_, he had thought.

(_autonno)_


	4. Summer

**Summer**

So rusty-brown two days before, the grass was now a delicious green gold, flourishing in the buttery yellow light and tickling the Prince's shoulder blades. The sun, though, was dying. It turned a deeper and deeper shade of orange, like a yam in an oven. The Prince felt vaguely hungry at that thought, though hunger hadn't really bothered him in a long, long time.

Staring at the black hands on the sun's wrinkled face, the Prince noted they were nearing midnight.

"Me and you," stated the Illusionist, looking straight in to the rays, "are both running out of time."

"There's no point in faking it," continued the Illusionist.

"Look at me and tell me I'm not old," commanded the Illusionist.

"You are," answered the Prince, half-surprised. What happened to him? What happened to the little baby he'd once known?

The Prince thought that sometimes no one knew anything; on the other hand, if there was anything worth knowing, wouldn't it be him that knew it first? He was a genius after all.

Right?

"You did," answered the Illusionist. "You all did."

The Prince's mouth flooded with bitter air. Had he spoken out loud?

"And what," he said slowly, "do you mean by that, you annoying chibi."

"You and all the others. Don't you remember anything?"

The Prince was irritated. If he remembered anything, this whole problem would already have been solved.

The Illusionist did not wait an answer from the Prince. He faced the Prince and nodded his chin, downwards, cordially.

"What time is it?"

"Almost midnight," read the Prince off the Illusionist's bony chest.

"Ah," sighed the Illusionist to the sun. "I knew it."

_His eyes_, thought the Prince, _really do look very old._

But all he said, was, "Are you going to tell me soon?"

(-)

The Prince had another dream.

The thing in the air had looked like a giant black crow blotting out the yam-sun. But actually it was just a man floating in the blue air. He sat on the clouds like they were his given right and silhouetted himself against the sky. The man had feathers in his hair and the eyes of tigers.

"Mam~, damn you," he growled.

"Xan~sama," replied the Illusionist, respectfully. He was a short man and was nearly swallowed by the thick field of blades crowding around him.

"I should shoot you. Little piece of shit traitor."

The Illusionist said nothing. What was there to say? His guilt spoke loudly enough—it was all he had a right to claim as a voice, now.

"You're not going to apologize." The man in the air spat.

"No," agreed the Illusionist.

"That's fine. Things should be that way. I hate it when things are done half-assed. But _tell _me then, Mam~, what the _fuck _is this then?"

Suddenly the man's crooked scarred nose was half an inch away from the Illusionist's own. Deep orange eyes and clear purple reflected each other into infinity.

"This—"

"This," completed the man, "is what I mean by _half-assed._"

Silence, again.

"If you're going to do something, scum, you do it all the way. I don't want any of this fucking shit."

More silence.

"You used to be stronger than this. You've grown fucking weak." The man sighed. "You're not going to let me out, are you?"

"I can't," said the Illusionist.

"Correction," snarled the man. "You don't _want _to. Is that right."

He did not deign to receive a response.

Rather, he took the initiative—as would ever be the Boss' right and duty to do—and raised the x-marked gun to his head.

"Goodbye, trash," the man in the sky said.

It occurred to the Prince that the sound of the gunshot was just a distorted cymbal crash. It seemed to echo even as he awoke.

(_estate) _


	5. Spring

**Spring**

The Prince stood on a cliff by the ocean, and played with his tiara.

The air was growing chilly. The flowers paled in a mockery of Spring, shrinking slowly into the dirt. The Prince watched the waves suck themselves in and spit themselves out in a foamy, dark grey mess, heaving under the constant drumming of the rain as it hit the clouds at bullet speed. The Illusionist stood beside him. The Prince remained dry while the Illusionist was undoubtedly getting drenched.

The Prince spoke to the droplets crawling out of the ground and up the Illusionist's pant leg: "You still haven't answered any of my questions, annoying little chibi."

He spoke to the moisture hauling itself up the tips of the Illusionist's pointed fingers: "The Prince thinks you've been avoiding the question for a little too long now. It's getting pretty annoying. This game is getting old and the Prince doesn't like when games are boring. The Prince won't play any more."

He spoke to the water nestling back through the Illusionist's unmoving eyelashes: "Did you hear me? Hello~? Are you listening to me?"

As a last resort, the Prince poked the Illusionist's cheek.

Unpleasant wet and cold sensations met the Prince. It felt rather like a fish's belly. The Prince wiped his fingers on his jacket, _tsk_-ing a little.

But no matter what the Prince cajoled or threatened, or what the Prince did, that day, the Illusionist refused to speak.

He just stared out at the writhing sea of his own mind and creation. Playing a low melody against the rough beach pebbles, the waves crashed.

He tried to drown himself in melancholy but of course he couldn't, or else, by now he would have already—

The Illusionist could only attempt to rejoice in the constant sobbing misery of the music, for he'd just lost the last one; he couldn't bear to look at the only remaining member standing next to him.

On the other hand, the Prince didn't have a clue why the Illusionist wouldn't talk, and didn't particularly care.

He was, as he had said, getting a little tired of it all.

(-)

Then the Prince had a third dream.

He was floating in the air and looking down on a confrontation on the rocky beach.

"VOOOOOIII! Mammo~, you little bastard!"

"Commander Squ~," replied the Illusionist.

The waves dragged and spat at the two men standing at the base of the seaside cliffs. Though they pulled persistently at their ankles for attention, tumbling rotten seaweed and rocks about like needy noisy children, neither person paid the water much heed. Rain sliced and slashed its way through the air haphazardly, confused.

"I know the fucking boss wouldn't agree but I'm going to say it anyway! This is actually pretty impressive." The man windmilled his arms around at the scenery. A few drops of water squashed their way into nonexistence against his arm. "It's very. Dramatic."

This almost got a smile out of the Illusionist.

"It's my job to," he said.

"Your job to?" said the man. "Don't agree with you there. It wasn't ever your job to do this."

"I was the mist guardian for—"

"That's not what I'm fucking talking about!" he roared. "You know what I'm saying. And what are you saying _was _for."

The Illusionist almost flinched. Even in a world of his creation the commander managed to be loud and irritating as ever.

"It's logical for me to say _was_," argued the Illusionist. "Was is the previous form of is. I used to be; I was; I am no longer. It makes perfect sense."

"Don't argue with me," said the man. "You _are _the Varia's mist guardian. You fucking will be until you die. The rest of us—whatever, if we're dead or living—have nothing to do with that. That title's not something you can shed like one of your illusions; peel it off like a snakeskin and it's gone. It's nothing like that. Do you get me?"

"Is the commander saying he's angry at me?"

"Who wouldn't be. Of course I fucking am, you fucking back-stabbed us, I've figured that much out." The commander grinned his toothy grin. "But I'm sure the boss already called you a piece-of-shit traitor or something like that, so I won't say it. It's done."

"He did," said the Illusionist. "He said all that."

There was a bit of an awkward silence as the water flailed about around them, and they both considered the fact that for most of their lives the Varia had been all they had known.

"I'm going," said the commander abruptly.

The symphony of water and rocks and groaning sky raged on as the Prince watched the Illusionist watch that mop of silver hair disappear into the ocean.

The Prince blinked.

The next time the Prince opened his eyes he was dry, though it rather felt like he shouldn't be.

(_primavera)_


	6. Reality

**Reality**

In this particular dream the blonde prince was sitting on a golden throne. The Prince looked straight ahead, into the nothingness of illusion. His breath came in black clouds like sections of ink hung to dry in the freezing rack of air. An ermine-fur cloak swallowed his thin body. A crown crowded with winking rubies crouched on his head. In one pale shell of a hand he held a massive scepter, and in the other, a mirror.

The chamber was high-ceilinged, lit dimly by endless chandeliers of blue flame while the edges of it faded into wall-less darkness. The floor was covered with thousands and thousands of toys: stuffed animals, dolls, sailboats, soldiers. They looked impatient.

The Prince tapped one pale finger against the arm of the throne, humming tunelessly. And in the background all the while there was—a noise—it rang low and sure through the air, distorted beyond recognition, like a melted plastic mask.

_There is no light in a room where there is no sun. _

The Prince sent his commanding stare into the blue hours of darkness and beckoned, imperiously, with one naked arm.

This was his session of justice. And the Illusionist was on trial.

"Bel," said the Illusionist.

"Mammon," answered Bel.

It was then he noticed the same black figure standing there, right at the edge where the chandelier lights drowned in night air. Acting the jury.

"You'd better tell me everything, little chibi." The knives appeared, in strings and strings of sharp, accusing glares behind Bel. Mammon rubbed his eyes, swayed. He was losing control fast—the dream was shattering.

"You'd better tell me everything right now. The Prince is very tired of waiting. Where's everyone gone?"

Mammon chose to look at the trembling chandeliers as he spoke. He didn't want to see that blonde child's face.

"You know that money was always the most important thing to me," he began. "You know that would never change."

Bel felt a change coming.

"I got an offer one day. More than I'd ever dreamed of—no, I'd dreamed of it, but more than I'd ever seen before. It would all be mine."

"Oh? What'd they pay you for?" interrupted Bel.

"Not to speak," said Mammon.

"To not say a word," said Mammon.

"And I…

"I watched you all walk straight in to that trap. I just stood there and watched. You had no idea, none of you, what you were getting in to. How could you? None of you did the research. You'd always relied on me, and I'd _sold _you out." Mammon spat out the word, shaking.

"But we won, we won—?"

"_No. _You idiot prince, fake prince...none of you won. You were _destroyed. _All of you. You were blind as children. They came for you and they overwhelmed you and you lost."

Mammon wouldn't let Bel interrupt, not now. The damn clock on his chest was gripping his skin, digging its insidious little nails in. He plowed through, his eyes aching and tight and warm. He spoke more to himself than the Prince.

"And I was such an idiot. I should have taken it and left. I should have just gone. It's the mafia's orders, to know when to leave your team, when to escape, when to move on. They're gone and you've got to let it alone. But."

On the verge of losing everything, he half-broke, and snuck a glance at Bel. Bel had the terrible, terrible smile of a child-king coating his face.

"Bel, I tried to save you all. I dragged your bodies out of there, I got them to some hospital, God knows where, I don't know where I am now." His voice was tinged with madness. "I don't know if they're coming for me, or when they're coming for me… And—"

"And," completed Bel, "we were already dying. So the great chibi-chan decided to—"

"You have to listen to me," pleaded Mammon. "Do you understand? If I could just get inside your minds, and fix things in there, so you'd think your bodies were all right. It didn't matter if you were dying. You didn't think you were dying, so you could keep living. Long enough to—I thought you'd heal in time. It was a temporary thing. I swear—"

"How long." Bel cut across Mammon's protests. He slashed the words to pieces. "How long have you kept us like that. Like your damn puppets, strung on a string for the great Mammon to play with? Did you think we were your toys? This is our lives." He slipped into the royal _we_—for the Varia's sake, you understand.

Mammon blinked.

Mammon's eyes were fading. His body was vanishing, falling to translucence as the room began to shake.

Far far away, but close-close_-close_, a chunk of the ceiling dropped in on their conversation; the dream crumbled as they spoke.

Mammon flinched, and the distorted music climbed up and swelled again behind him like a hungry beast. It threatened to overwhelm him in a wave.

Bel knew that really, it was unfair to take advantage of the weak. But he was damn angry and didn't give a fuck right then.

"Answer me," he hissed. "How long?"

Mammon refused to answer him.

"You know how time doesn't work the same way here and there," he said instead. "Years, years here, I spent spinning illusions for you, only to find I'd only managed to keep you for an hour, or two."

"How long?"

"And I couldn't sleep, or eat, or anything…this type of illusion, it's nothing so simple to do. It's impossible. It takes you over like nothing else. I was so tired—"

"How long?"

Mammon broke and looked away again.

"It's been three weeks since you should have died," he said.

The black figure slid forward.

Some harsh, choked-off noise issued from Mammon's mouth. There was a great resurgence of effort. The figure slid back again, but both Bel and Mammon saw its claws, clearly, in the corners of their eyes. Mammon seemed to gain a few years in age. Keeping Him back was no easy effort.

"And the others figured it out," stated Bel.

Music groaned and thrust upwards in the background.

"Yes."

"And now the Prince has, too," said Bel.

Music heaved like a man, vomiting out its own organs in the last throes of Death.

"You have," said Mammon, voice cracking. "Bel, please, you have to—"

_Please what?_ he thought.

"Such a child," laughed Bel.

As the room flooded, filled and spilled with a sticky scarlet liquid, as the ceiling crashed down in great chunks now, piercing the palace with agonizing sun-arrows, as the stuffed animals drowned in their grins and Mammon drowned in Bel's sharp teeth, as the music ground into a guillotine and swung down sharp and fast and sure—

—the figure's face came in to the light, the unbearably bright light.

Mammon screamed.

The air tasted like bloody wine.

And that music rang and rang in his ears even after Mammon wakes up.

(-)

His eyes snap open to reality like twigs breaking.

The sounds of his heart, clawing and screeching away inside his now clock-less chest—stupid, injured beast, shut up shut _up_—ricochet off the narrow hospital room's stained walls. They swarm around him like a cloud of bats. Outside the door the incessant music, inane top-pop-forty stuff, blares tinny and far-far-away from the nurses' station. It's an insult that, after all their vices and mistakes and moments of good, the Varia received no other dirge but this, filtering relentlessly into Mammon's dream, the unwelcome reminder of reality. Meanwhile, the snow quivers down on the other side of the window; the heathen gods' salt on their daily diet of human suffering sprinkles thick over the city. The sky is lead grey, a poisonous sludge of a miles-thick wall between Heaven and Here. Flickering hospital lights cast the two figures, one prone and one bent, one gone and one barely here, in a false gold that tarnishes fast underneath the weight of night incoming outside.

_Ah. That's right_, thinks Mammon, in a delicious whirl of delirious fever, _it was winter in the real world. Winter where all this mess with Bel and the rest began. How appropriate, that the world becomes winter now—_

Mammon's fingers quiver in his lap. He breathes hard and fast and cannot stop himself from slumping forward. The drain of holding the illusion constant and steady for weeks renders him nearly unconscious.

Mammon comes up with all the fanciful metaphors he can to help him ignore the fact that there is one very dead blonde Prince lying on the bed in front of him.

The long beep of the machine will drive him insane.

It says: _you are the last of the Varia surviving. _

It grins and asks:

_Now, why is that? _

Make no mistake, he knows why.

The pain building in his chest is too much to bear. An ocean is crushing him. He will drown. A thousand and more illusions Mammon has spun of death and destruction, and the number of corpses under his feet he has long lost track of.

But this—

The sheer hard-edged reality of it sitting in the room with him—

Even staring straight at it Mammon can't quite believe it's true. It is more surreal than anything he could conjure, as he's heard the scattered survivors of his attacks sob a thousand and more times. Why didn't he listen to them? Arrogance, and more arrogance. Accusatory words.

Mammon opens his mouth to answer, to ward them off, but nothing comes out but a dry breathing noise. It is the mocking sound of his continuing, damned life. And he can't even blame this one on God (if he believed in a God at all), because Mammon knows very well who's at fault here.

The sound of the beep mixes with the sound of a nurse. She is screaming, too.

Had he screamed, when—?

Somehow Mammon forces himself to totter up and glance out the window. Anywhere but here.

They have, he realizes, come for him.

He shivers down the aisle, past the screaming nurses and the screaming doctors and the screaming radio—silent. He stumbles past four closed doors.

He will not think about Levi, and Lussuria, and Xanxus, and Squalo. He will not think about Bel.

Incredibly fast, he is outside, where the snow-salt lands on the freezing shoulders of him—the sacrifice.

His thoughts are a frenzy in the blue and white world, with those dark shadows lurking far-far-away at the edges; they can't possibly be men.

Strange, thinks Mammon, but it doesn't really feel cold. Or had he spent so long in the dream-world, making it, sustaining it, that he has lost all touch with reality? This is the trap of every great illusionist. That's right, there's that too: will they consider him great, later? Does it matter? All that matters is there will be a later, a future, a next. Mammon is no fool, the Earth keeps spinning, will keep spinning past the unpleasant _present-_ness of this situation.

But right now.

At this _instance _in time, this exact _moment_, with the snow and the night and the beast-shadows eyeing him, it feels very much like it will stop spinning soon.

Watching from the side, one of the shadows mutters, "Watch out for that gun."

They circle and gaze, warily. What will this lone remainder of its species do?

Images flutter through their heads of some final words, a last stand, perhaps? Or—unlikely, but would he plead for mercy? Would he explain himself?

But Mammon, in a surprising twist in an after-all predictable tale, does nothing more harmful than place the gun against the roof of his own mouth.

He smiles and pulls.

It explodes. Predictably.

Strangely, as he plummets earthwards with the snow, all Mammon thinks at that _instance_, that _moment _in time, is—

_Once upon a time—_

_(realtà)_


	7. Epilogue

**The End**

"Did you hear about…?"

"Why. What happened?"

"It snowed in Naples."

"What do you mean it _snowed_?"

Incredulity spread itself all around as the butter-fat, smiling sun strides in and on, unstoppable as the clocks' ticking.

"I mean, come on. It's July."

_(l'estremità)_

**AN: This is useless to you now but Alice, rest in peace. **


End file.
